1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to software programs and, more generally, to search engines that search large numbers of documents.
2. Description of Background Art
The World Wide Web (WWW) has grown phenomenally in recent years. At the beginning of the web""s history, there were hundreds or thousands of web pages in existence. At the present time, there are millions of web pages, and the number is increasing daily. The rapid increase in the number of web pages has increased the difficulty of finding information on the web. Even though the information that a person wants may be available on the web, it is sometimes difficult to locate the page or site that contains the information. If a person performs many searches, it can be difficult to organize the search results and remember how the search results were obtained.
A user searching on the WWW may search on many unrelated topics. More than one browser can be used by a user over time. Users tend to search over many sessions and may terminate and restart their browser between sessions. For each topic searched by a user, the user will probably search on many queries. Users use many search services and may look at more than one search result page. When a user finds a useful result, he is often unsure whether the information found is the best available or whether he should search further. Finding information on the WWW is currently difficult for users because they encounter a large amount of information and have no easy way to keep track of it.
Prior approaches to bookmarking (for example, Netscape Navigator""s xe2x80x9cBookmarksxe2x80x9d facility and Microsoft Internet Explorer""s xe2x80x9cFavoritesxe2x80x9d facility) allow users to save useful hyperlinks in a xe2x80x9cbookmarksxe2x80x9d list. Users are allowed to group a set of links under a topic, by creating a folder, giving the folder a name, and placing links within the folder. This system is well suited for links that need to be remembered for a long time (i.e., for links corresponding to the user""s long-term memory of web pages).
For links that are of temporary interest, such as tentative leads found on a search engine result page (i.e., corresponding to the user""s short-term memory of web pages), it takes too much effort to create a folder and give it a name. Hence, users usually do not bookmark tentative information.
Prior approaches to query-specific data collection have required communication with the logging site (usually the search service) each time a result page was visited. Certain conventional approaches extend the web browser to show users statistics about the pages they visit and, in the process, log the pages they visit. Such approaches are not query-specific. Other approaches redirect accesses to result pages through a logging site (usually the search site itself). This approach logs the result pages viewed by the user for each query. However, it also causes a delay in accessing the result page, and increases the network traffic both for the user and the logging site, without providing any additional value to the user. In addition, the described conventional approaches fail to record which result links the user actually found to be relevant to the query.
What is needed is a way to easily keep track of tentative search results and to remember which queries were used to obtain the results.
The described embodiments of the present invention provide both query-specific bookmarking and query-specific data collection. These features allow users to search more efficiently on the WWW by allowing users to explicitly maintain their search context. A user""s search context includes queries recently deployed by the user, along with some or all of the hyperlinks the user looked at and/or liked in the context of each query.
In addition, users can also collect query-specific relevance and usage data. Specifically, the described embodiment can log information including but not limited to: queries that were issued; result pages viewed for each query; result hyperlinks considered relevant for each query; the order in which result pages were viewed; and whether a result hyperlink considered relevant was actually viewed by the user. This type of information can be used, for example, to statistically compare two ranking algorithms or two search services. It can also be used to compute the relevance of pages to queries, which in turn can be used to improve the ranking of search services.
The described embodiments of the present invention arise in the context of WWW search services. They apply both to general-purpose search engines, which facilitate searches over the entire Web, and to specialized search services, which permit searches over private databases. Any service that returns a list of URLs or hypertext addresses in response to a search query can benefit from this invention.
In accordance with the present invention, as described and presented herein, there is provided a computer-implemented method of query-specific bookmarking in a network, comprising: maintaining, on a client-side computer, lead information about a previously performed search, the lead information including the query used in the search and the at least some of the resulting links returned by the search; displaying the query used in the search and the resulting links; receiving a user-selection of a displayed resulting link; and displaying the document corresponding to the selected query-specific link.
In further accordance with the present invention, as described and presented herein, there is provided a computer-implemented method of query-specific bookmarking in a network, comprising: maintaining, on a client-side computer, lead information about a previously performed search, the lead information including the query used in the search and the at least some of the resulting links returned by the search; displaying the query used in the search and the resulting links; receiving a user-selection of a displayed query; and re-submitting the selected query to a search engine.
In further accordance with the present invention, as described and presented herein, there is provided a computer-implemented method for query bookmarking on a client machine, comprising: receiving a result, including a plurality of links, for a query from a search engine; allowing the user to mark one of the plurality of links; and saving the marked link and the query as a query-specific lead.
In further accordance with the present invention, as described and presented herein, there is provided a computer-implemented method of bookmarking a query, comprising: receiving a result for a query, the result including a plurality of links, each link having an associated executable; allowing the user to mark one of the plurality; of links; executing the executable associated with the marked link to store the query and the marked link as a query-specific lead in a cookie accessible by a browser.
In further accordance with the present invention, as described and presented herein, there is provided a computer-implemented method of displaying a bookmarked query, comprising: retrieving a cookie maintained on a client-side computer, the cookie including lead information about a previously performed search, the lead information including the query used in the search and the at least some of the resulting links returned by the search; displaying the retrieved query and the retrieved resulting links; receiving a selection of a displayed resulting link; and causing the document corresponding to the selected link to be displayed.
In further accordance with the present invention, as described and presented herein, there is provided a computer-implemented method of bookmarking a query, comprising: receiving a result for a query, the result including a plurality of links, each link having an associated executable; allowing the user to mark one of the plurality of links; executing the executable associated with the marked link to store the query and the marked link as a query specific lead in a cookie accessible by a browser.
The invention includes comparable apparatus and computer readable media containing instructions executable by a data processor.